


Dovetail

by breakneck



Category: The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: Bathtub Sex, Consensual, Everyone knows we're out here craving that fish stick, F/M, Falling In Love, Graphic Description, Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Porn With Plot, Senses, Spoilers, Tender Sex, Tenderness, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Weird Biology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 10:46:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13122138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breakneck/pseuds/breakneck
Summary: dovetailverbDefinition of dovetail:transitive verb1a : to join by means of dovetailsb : to cut to a dovetail2a : to fit skillfully to form a wholeb : to fit together withintransitive verb: to fit together into a whole-It's entirely sensory with him.-(This film just came out, and I've only seen it once, but if you've read any of my other works, you will know that I am a filthy monster-fucker and lover of big scary creatures who just want to be seen and loved. I will edit this if I get the details wrong. If you notice any details out of place, please let me know.)





	1. Encounter Two

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just playing around with the sensory details of the film, probably I'll give us a proper sex scene, mostly I just want to explore what it would feel like to be Elisa/to be with Elisa. I want to explore his perspective, what he might have seen and what he might have felt, but I'll probably approach this as limited-omniscience with full thoughts on Elisa and less so on the Asset.
> 
> Thank you, del Toro for my life. It's as if someone looked into my soul and made a film about everything I could ever want out of a story. I don't even necessarily think this story needs fan fiction, I just love it so much I have to make sonething.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I'm backtracking slightly. More than likely I'll post lots of little scenes throughout the day. Yes, I am working towards a love scene, but I like to do a little background color first.)

Encounter Two:

They were instructed to take twenty minutes, make the place immaculate. The doors slide open and Crimson on the tile, an effigy of rivers. It's not the first time Elisa and Zelda have mopped blood. They split up without needing to communicate. Elisa spots the source, stoops, and retrieves a pair of fingers. She holds them up for Zelda to see, and Zelda runs for help. Elisa pulls out her lunch bag, places the digits inside. There is a large glass tube and movement inside. She sees him again, trailing blood as he moves, a Christ-like wound in his side. She presses her hand to the glass, hardly knowing why, and he presses his hand to her's in answer.

The door opens.

She turns, presents the lunch bag triumphant. She will return.

ROMEO  
(taking JULIET’s hand) If I profane with my unworthiest hand  
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:  
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand  
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET  
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,  
Which mannerly devotion shows in this,  
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,  
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.


	2. Chapter 2

Elisa pulls the egg from her brown paper bag. She can't help but smile every day when she eats it and remembers the pleasant time passed as she boiled it, hand between thighs in hot water.

-But today is different. The idea runs across her skin like sparks. She puts the egg back in her bag carefully. She does not eat in the lunchroom, does not steal away to the locker room for peace and quiet; today the idea of giving someone else this remembered pleasure spurs her to unimaginable boldness.

She kneels at the edge of the pool of murky water. The color reminds her of a pond on a summer day although the room itself is cold and dank. Yesterday's lunch bag enclosed fingers smeared in mustard for a time, and now with faith the size of a grain of mustard seed she endeavors to move a mountain.

Like the surface of the water she does not tremble as she produces the egg. She removes a spoon and Breaks the smooth shell. In the near-silence of the room the sound is a beacon. No response comes quick enough so she breaks the shell again, a pleasant barrier broken. There is a ripple in the pool. Two golden eyes appear set in a head the color of sunlight filtering through that imagined summer pond, some blue, some green.

A flutter in Elisa's heart.  
He stands, exposed.  
He is tall, and glistening.  
His anatomy is strange, smooth but complete.  
He is chained about the neck.  
Elisa knows a mix of relief and anger at the sight.  
He lunges for the egg.  
Elisa quakes back.  
He dives into the depths.

She leaves the egg on the edge of his enclosure, barriers broken for the taking if he so wishes.

He takes the egg in one clawed hand.

There will be more.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals. Like I said, I'm posting as I finish a section. I'm curious if I can get it all out of my system today or if it'll be the next couple of days.

Elisa sits at the edge of the enclosure with her back to "the asset." She opens the case beside her to reveal a record player, readies it, and places the needle. The music fills the space immediately. She places an egg, with its warm-brown shell on the hard metal edge of the cold enclosure. She thinks about what the water in a South American river must feel like. She struggles against the melody to conjure it from a memory decades old she believes she's lost.

The water stirs. His face emerges.

She pulls the needle from the record.

He makes a sound, like a hiss. With more power behind it the noise would be threatening, powerful, but for her it's an attempt to communicate. Elisa smiles. She points to the record player and signs the word for music. When he signs it back to her, he does so eagerly. She is pleased her benediction is well received.

In the days following, she brings him every record she can think of, she lets him choose which he wishes to listen to as they eat their lunch. She teaches him words as she can. She buys more eggs and relishes in boiling them.

One morning, with the faint tick of the egg timer in the background she slides into her tub. She thinks of the way his mouth encircles the eggs, the perfect cupid's bow of his lips. Her body stirs.

She imagines it is his hand that slides between her thighs, considers the dangerous points of his claws, shivers, and reconsiders. She splays her legs wide, braces her feet, imagines those dangerous claws trailing across her delicate skin, choosing to be soft, choosing to feel. She imagines his mouth. She can't seem to imagine what genitalia he might have, her memory has him smooth. She imagines his mouth. His mouth pressed against her. She cums hard, breathes heavy.

When she sees him that day, she blushes at the memory and considers the green water, wonders who might see. She doesn't realize she's being watched, that Dr. Hoffstetler had seen the two together, that he knew.


	4. Chapter Four

Giles has a passion for the unattainable, so, she tells him after the first encounter. She thinks Giles will understand. Understand...what exactly? That it doesn't matter what he is? That she yearns for him? That he is her's in her heart? He doesn't truly believe her at first, after all, there's a difference between the advanced technology she sometimes mentions and her scaly Adonis. He indulges her, she suspects out of curiosity at such a wild claim and then knowingly in the same way she allows for the sickly green key lime pie. Both hope as they push the boulder up the hill that this time will be the last and they can rest in someone's arms at the top.

But the day she finds her creature wounded, Elisa  
is determined to push until she finds the catching place.

She had had to flee him, dropping her offering in the process. Ran and hid, silent as a mouse. Small and harmless again. She stood white-knuckled and watched them try to mar him. There were too many men, too many bastards with guns. Dr. Hoffstetler stepped in before it was too late. She noted him, and without her knowing, he noted her.

Her fists remained clenched. Clenched around the mops, rags, and sponges. Clenched fists and clenched teeth.

She will come for him. If she has to wrench him free herself, she will.

Giles doesn't understand.

Elisa slings her words at him, pleads, but to no avail. She knows she could get him to understand if he could only see him, but he is preoccupied with his own Sysiphean task of trying to get his own fickle tempter back on his side. It's an idle dream to him, he didn't see the way he looked at her, he didn't hear them say that he would be dissected and disposed of; he didn't know.

Afterwards, after a day being denied his old flame and insulted by the prospective new, he acquiesces. Elisa spent her day in dejected scheming, is burning up with determination, and he leans into that warmth. It's almost a game, making the ID card and painting the van, it takes his mind off the shame sitting in his gut.

When he comes to the gate it is suddenly real. He realizes that it didn't matter what sweater he wore, he's still just a balding old man who until a moment ago was pretending at espionage and clandestine rendezvous.

The guard is immediately suspicious, the watermarks are growing around Giles's armpits, and everything is going to hell in a handbasket. A thought begins cycling over through his head. I'm not good at this. I'm not good at this. I'm not good at this. He's making conversation somehow with the guard. It's not going well. He wonders if he could possibly be more suspicious if he tried and chuckles breathlessly to himself.

A man in a lab coat comes creeping. A man in a white coat moves smoothly and without hesitating jabs a needle into the guard's neck. He falls limp. The man whose eyes shine behind his glasses tells Giles to hurry and he does. Aloud Giles says to himself, "I'm not good at this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will bring us a love scene, likely in more detail than these little vignettes. I hope you've enjoyed it so far and that my style of posting isn't too frustrating, it keeps me motivated to keep going.


	5. From the Fishbowl

Elisa's skin changes color. Unlike the men in the labcoats the woman, and what a woman, bares enough skin at the neck and the ankles that he can observe her. She blanches at first, when he rises from the water, and he knows he shouldn't have shown her too much of himself at once, it can be overwhelming to be in the presence of a god, but he had wanted her to know, to see.

-But this, this supplicant, her benedictions were pure. In his presence she was unafraid, reverent. The men, they were afraid. That is why you try to chain a god, why you beat him; but she was respectful, she left her offerings where he could claim them, but never demanded a blessing in return.

And her offerings! She brought sweet music! In the jungle they brought music, but this was different, she smuggled it in a box under her arm, a secret in the way she carried it, as a balm for his heart. The way she moved told him that she could find herself in trouble with the music box.

She never asked for anything in return.

Her skin now, it went pink when he requested a certain song. He didn't understand at first.

She danced as she cleaned then. The color rising in her cheeks. She stole glances at him as she moved. Her eyes were dark and lovely even in the sallow light of the lab, and he wondered to his surprise if she liked what she saw, chained though he was.

He resolved he would show her his own colors when he got free.

\----------------

She won't be able to save him. Here he is in her bathtub at last and he's still gasping shallow breaths. Is this worse for giving him hope? Can she bear to bathe again in the tub he dies in? Hoffstetler had given her the proper mixture for his water, but it's not enough. She leans over him almost to wildly attempt CPR in a vain gesture, hesitates with Giles in the room knowing it's foolish, when she remembers the salt.

She runs then, grabs every bit of salt she can find in her tiny little apartment and dumps what she can into the mixture in the bath. She churns the lukewarm water with her hand, and waits, waits, waits. He breathes. She sags on the edge of the tub, grips the remaining salt loosely. It begins to pour at her feet. When Giles mentions it finally, she doesn't throw it over her shoulder, and she later wonders if that was her mistake.

She talks with Giles quietly as they let her jailbird rest. When she goes back into him, she reaches down and touches his chest, checks that he's breathing.

His skin... She can't focus on the task at hand, because he's real and tangible here in her bathroom!  
His golden eyes are open now. He puts a hand out to touch her back, hand to chest, hand on heart quivering in her chest. She tears herself away, stands abruptly leaves the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, I know what I said, and there will be smut, but I wanted to give you what I had written. I'm the world's slowest writer, my apologies.


	6. Chapter 6

Her heart is pounding. Her breath is gasping gasping in her ears and she's not sure if what she is doing is right, or sensical, or if any of this is real. She taps each of her fingers together, checking to see if the moisture is still there. After a moment, she looks up.

Giles looks as if someone has wrung him out like an old washcloth; his hairpiece is slightly askew and adjusts it absently as he watches her enter the room. She realizes that she has been the general and somehow they have both escaped this battle if not the war. For an instant her eyes sting with tears and then, an intense euphoria. She starts to say something to Giles, but he waves her away.  
"Go on." He says. She nods more to herself than him and walks past him back into her apartment.

Her egg timer waits on the end table, old life, old dreams, and somehow the sight gives her courage. She prepares herself quickly and when she opens the bathroom door she is ready.

He regards her there in the green little bathroom with his gilded eyes and she decides that for once she will play Venus, pulls the sash of her silk dressing gown, and shows herself. Her body, always covered by her stiff uniform, so long without touch, was grounded in the present and for once she felt truly and entirely present in her skin. The only way to worship him was to respect him as an equal, to play goddess to his god, so it was she who made the approach, she who pressed her hand to his chest, and she knelt with her mouth to his.

\---------------------------------------------------

"By nudity the lovers cease to be solely John and Mary; the universal He and She are emphasised. You could almost say they put on nakedness as a ceremonial robe – or as the costume for a charade..." -The Four Loves -C.S. Lewis

\------------------------------

The ritual is not lost on him. He knows the cut of the drab little dress she wears, knows not the silk, but appreciates the shine and ripple like water, better still when it slides off her skin. She presses him down, and he is pleased to note her gentle strength, better still the hard press of her soft mouth to his.

What a mouth! So expressive from afar, and so supple now when experienced up close, few had dared to press him mouth to mouth, his kind rarely did so. She was sunlight filtering through silt, beauty filtering through obscurity, lips working experimentally with increasing intensity.

Then, -Her tongue enters his mouth; brave soldier past his fortress of sharp teeth! He hisses softly in surprise. She pulls back, dark eyes searching. It is his oblation to give. He sits up, presses his mouth to her's. His tongue is less soft but he can be gentle. He cups her face in his hands. Touches her glorious hair with his fingertips. She must be worshipped in return for her worship. Careful, he explores her hair with one hand as he kisses her. He pulls her closer over the edge of the tub feeling the flow of her hair in his long fingers.

She is less careful, she breaks the kiss and straddles him, barefoot at last, lacking the beautiful flippers, but gaining expressive toes which she plants on either side of his body. She sits cradled by his long legs, one leg of her's sprawled out along the edge of the tub, water sloshing over the side. She smiles and leans in again.

\-----------------------------------------------------

Kissing him is trying to kiss a thunderstorm; you are briefly under an overpass as the storm rages, and in a brief moment it will pass and you will see it's full force once again. When she pulls back from the kiss, she is afraid for a moment she has done wrong, but she opens her eyes to see -the lights. He is glowing, effervescent blue is glimmering from his body, his eyes are shining, and an understanding passes between them without words. His body is the lukewarm temperature of the bathwater, but he is beginning to match her temperature.

They are overcome. Her eyes want to contribute to the bathtub's saline content. She laughs a small, dry sound, but rich in expression, and kisses him again. She is beautiful and rich in her shabby apartment, she is Elisa carved from marble. Her hands find the hollow of his back and the nape of his neck. She is allowed to touch the finery of his delicate gills, his sharp spines.

There is something ...else. He pulls back again. He wants to show her the rest of himself. He leads with his eyes and touches his pelvic area, asking her permission, he pulls his hands back, places them in front of his chest starting with hands near shoulders, balls them into fists, and moves them down and up, and points to himself, "Can I?"

She nods, looks up at him through her lashes, and reaches her own hand down between her thighs. With her left arm braced against the bathtub wall, she spreads her lips with her right hand, an unmistakable invitation and a baring at last of all pretense.

At this, a wave of anticipation crashes over him, she can feel it shiver through his body, and finally the mystery begins to reveal itself. One of his scales slides open at the top ridge revealing a long, member, tapering to a point at the end. The shaft is pale, translucent, and thick at the base, curving upward; and she realizes with a thrill, flexible, as the length rippled in one long, impressive, wave.

He glides into her easily as she maneuvers her body to take him in, the nature of his member such that it was already slick by nature. She is concerned for a moment that she will not be able to take him, but she's come so far that she confidently rocks her hips and takes him almost all the way down the shaft; though the base is too thick for her.

He cups her face with his hand, rubs a little circle with his thumb on her cheek. She rocks again, and he rolls his fabulous shaft with a pant. The rythm is slow at first, especially given the limited quarters, but eventually they match each other's pace, he bucking and writhing and she riding him. When they are close he surges upward, pulls her into an embrace and washes over her insides with a last powerful surge. When they come down Elisa realizes she is weeping and he accepts this offering as well, tasting her joy in her tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good grief! I apologize for the delay. If I'm honest, it was a combination of fear deciding what his equipment should look like and a paralyzing fear that my plans were too similar to the end of the novel version of this story. I think they're dissimilar enough, but I will say, I wrote my final chapter before I read the book, so if when we get there you feel they are similar, know that I guess the groundwork was already layed and I followed it. (But then again, I'm doing this for free so I guess if you don't like it, don't read it?) 
> 
> I took a few cues on how the Asset thinks of Elisa from the book, especially, adorably, that he thinks of her elaborate shoes as flippers. 
> 
> There will be more, when, I don't know.


End file.
